ARTICLES ABOUT CAMPAIGN MANAGER BY DATE - PAGE 4

Republican congressional candidate Laureen Cummings has fired her first major shot at Democrat Matt Cartwright, saying he's out of touch with working class residents in the 17th District. Cummings issued a new release Monday criticizing Cartwright for a fundraising event June 8 with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The minimum suggested donation for guests is $1,000, and a photo with Pelosi cost $2,500. “The $1,000 ticket price is far beyond the reach of most of us,” Cummings said in the release.

Remember when Matt Cartwright's campaign manager said one final piece of mail had been dropped off before the negative ad cease fire agreed to last week? Well, it arrived in 17th District mailboxes this weekend and struck a major nerve with incumbent congressman Tim Holden's campaign. The ad features the question "Is Holden worried about cancer?" The answer: "NO!” Holden's campaign fired off a response on Sunday calling the flier “pathetic.” “It's one of the worst and blatantly false political ads I've ever seen,” Holden campaign manager Eric Nagy said.

Congressional candidates Tim Holden and Matt Cartwright have agreed to stop airing negative campaign advertisements during the final five days before the 17th district Democratic primary. Holden, a 10-term incumbent, requested the ceasefire Thursday after he pulled an ad that Cartwright said made his blood boil. The ad, the latest in the back and forth between the two candidates and political organizations that support them, essentially accused Cartwright of bribing a judge with campaign donations from his Scranton law firm Munley, Munley and Cartwright.

You can golf like a pampered pro and help save animals by playing 100 holes. How you ask? The Center for Animal Health & Welfare is sponsoring a 100-hole golf marathon on April 21 at Olde Homestead Golf Course, Route 309, in New Tripoli. The agency in Williams Township is looking for 36 participants who are serious about the center's mission and want to make a difference. Players will golf, eat and drink while raising money for a great cause, organizers say. Each individual's fundraising goal is $1,500.

Already facing a test from within his own party, Pennsylvania's longest-tenured congressman has a new set of voices challenging his bid for an 11th term. And they're coming from far outside of the state. Democrat Tim Holden, who is facing Lackawanna County attorney Matt Cartwright in the 17th District primary, is under attack from political action committees based in Texas and California. The Campaign for Primary Accountability, a Dallas-based Super PAC, says it plans to spend six figures on "full spectrum warfare" again Holden.

Rick Santorum, after defying national political expectations for months, announced an end to his presidential bid Tuesday, conceding the Republican nomination to front-runner Mitt Romney. Santorum, who began exploring a run in 2009, holding sparsely attended events in places like New Hampshire and traveling among small towns in Iowa in a pickup truck, outlasted nearly the entire GOP field to finish runner-up. "We made a decision to get into this race at our kitchen table and against all the odds," he told reporters in Gettysburg.

The Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional District launched their television advertisements Wednesday and the two sides have already traded barbs over the messages. Lackawanna County attorney Matt Cartwright's ad buy was $70,000 for a 60-second spot on cable, broadcast and radio. The ad outlines Cartwright's career as an attorney “protecting people and small businesses from predatory banks and insurance companies.” It says Cartwright will do the same in Congress by making sure big corporations and wealthy Americans pay their fair share.

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski brought in roughly $251,000 last year in campaign donations and in-kind support, although he spent roughly $104,000 on staff and fundraising events during that time, a report filed Monday shows. After two big campaign fundraisers in Philadelphia last fall, political observers said Pawlowski, who has been Allentown's mayor since 2006, is testing the waters for a run at a statewide office in 2014. "While I must admit that the thought of statewide office is intriguing and a great honor to be considered, I still have much work to accomplish in Allentown," Pawlowski said in a news release Monday.

WASHINGTON — Democrat Bob Casey has many advantages over the field of Republicans hoping to unseat him, but in some match-ups it seems he won't have a sizable money edge. In the race to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate, former coal company executive Tom Smith has fronted more than $4 million of his own cash for his campaign. And entrepreneur Steve Welch has put up $1 million. Such sums give the two relatively unknown Republicans ample opportunity to buy advertising that gets their names out and attacks Casey.

WASHINGTON — After months of quiet, Republicans have emerged from the woodwork ready to take on U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. With the political climate not improving for Democrats and without a GOP establishment-backed candidate, a group of challengers sees an opening for an upset. There's no career politician in the bunch. Instead, the hopefuls include a former coal company executive, a veterans' advocate, an entrepreneur who briefly ran for Congress, an Army colonel and an attorney who worked for Rick Santorum.